The Crown of the Seven Towns
by cerruenos
Summary: A descendant of the bogeyman has imprisoned the leaders of the seven towns in the crown of forever. Only on the head of the true queen can it release the souls of Jack and the rest.Some oc's. please review! Edited by Artimis Howl. discontinued
1. lantern falls

dry leaves swirled around in the chill october air

dry leaves swirled around in the chill october air. someone trudges down a empty,lamplit street, her coat collar pulled over her face against the cold.unknown to her , glowing yellow eyes where watching her from the shadows.she would know soon .no need to rush things. halloween was soon enough. with barely a whisper,she passed by ,her boots clicking on the pavement.with barely a whisper ,the things that had been watching the girl from beneath the widespread branches of the old oak dissapeared,gone back to the realm from which they came.

unable to use her hands because she was encumbered by large packages of groceries, sidhe(better known as sid)kicked open the worn wooden door to her families ancient,crrumbling victorian mansion(it doubled as a bed and breakfast).the lights were turned off at 9:00,but it didnt matter . she had traveled these hallways so many times she knew the route to the kitchen by heart.she grumbled,lugging the heavy groceries."my parents are insane,theres no other explanation"her leather boots rasped quietly on the weatherworn floorboards"no one in their right mind would wake me up in the middle of a perfectly nice dream and send me down to the twentyfour seven to get"she wrinkled her nose in distaste"twentyfive pounds of raw,bloody steak""its midnight and 2 days before halloween "she continued"AND i have school tommorrow."reaching the kitchen with sleepy,shuffling steps,she opened the refrigerator and let its cold,chill air bathe her face. she yawned,a huge wide gape she was quick to cover with her hand.some might not believe in ancient superstitions or faeries,but lavender annd demitri(sidhes parents)had believed in them so much, the had named their only child one of the names belonging to that ancient race. sidhe didnt believe in them so much,but she figured it didnt hurt to take precautions(just in case). sighing, the girl shoved the plastic wrapped packages into an empty space beside the cranberryy juice and stumbled up the worn ,creaking stairs.back to the safety of her lavendeer quilt,handstiched ,and her subtle vanilla orange incense burning in its special burners carved like dragons.back to where she could dissapear for a few precious hours back into dreamland, before halloween eve.something inside her told her she had to be ready,that this year was going to be special

the a beautiful,gleaming ,raven black machine. she had had it since she had first gotten her drivers license,and had ben saving for it since she was old enough to know what a motorcycle was. sidhe considered her motorcycle one of the few things she a had done right in her life.it had become a part of her daily morning routine, squeezing in a few precious moments of freedom ,before the long,torturous monotony that was highschool. moving with grace and ease,she manuevered inside her families dark garage. attach her tie die backpack to the handlebars?check.appropraitly dressed for school?( white pumpkin shirt,worn broken in cargoes with at least fifteen pockets, black boots,leather jacket)check.homework safely in blue folder ?check. she clicked open the garage door and winced at the rush of golden light that flooded the room,stinging her corneas.put on the helmet ,sid!ahhh that was better .the black plastic visor acted like a pair of sunglasses,greatly reducing the glare . in intense,practiced motions ,she buckled the strap under her chin and swung onto her motorcycles black leather saddle. with a few quick twists of the handlebars,the engine was revved and ready .sid kicked up the kickstand and exelerated , taking the steep turn from her parents driveway with ease. the gravel crunched under her rapidly spinning wheels. she loved moments like this ,when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing through her long black hair. for just a few moments,as blurring past the people on the street,she and the motorcycle became one.she was a bit of a legend among the town. leaves flew by in the wake of her motorcycle,sleek and dark in the sun.witch-girl,some called her .others-rider.her familys reputation for dealings just outside the acceptable level of weirdness was well know in the small,sleepy town of lantern falls.well ,she didnt care. the rare jerks who crossed themselves when she passed?let them.the people who whispered things and talked behind her back? not a problem.she had a terrific family ,true friends who she knew would always support her, a motorcycle and a good book(specifically, a book called the black tatoo)in sid's opinion,you couldnt ask for a lot more life,and the people who did where just plain greedy. she kicked down the kickstand and turned off her motorcycle in the parking lot,in front of a big oak sign that said illumination high.unbuckleing her helmet and sliding her backpack onto her back ,she rushed through the swinging doors of the low ,whitewashed highschool just as the second bell rang. a few straglers stood by open lockers gathering their books.in true teenager form they where steadily ignoring the black and orange crepe streamers hanging from the ceiling,and the paper bats and pumpkins glued to the wall.another day,another chance to ignore some idiot grownup who was trying to force them to be cheerful.who wouldnt be misrable ,being forced to come to a place like this every day?sid wondered as she broke into a trot.first period history,her first and only class with her best friend hazel, was on the other side of the building .she was so going to be late.

She skidded into the plain beige history room with seconds to spare,sliding into her desk about 50 seconds ahead of her teacher . she could see her friend hazel across the room, her nose buried in a book.sighing,sid pulled out her materials and assumed her customary slouching sprawl.her teacher mr acropolis had started talking about different holidays old civilizations used to have ,and was sketching out a wheel on the blackboard in green chalk.sid perked up. This actually looked interesting enough to pay attention to. Her ears focused on the words of his lecture in the stuffy,windowless classroom. Out of the corner of her eye,she saw hazel had put down her book and was rapidly scribbling notes.mr acropolis was saying"ancient civilizations had a wheel of eight holidays,or sabbats which invaders later turned into many well-known Christian holidays. For example, what we know as Halloween is actually an ancient pagan holiday called samhain .it was a night rumored to have been imbued with mystical powers,when the veil between dimensions is thinnest.fae ,goblins, all manner of spirits were supposed to be able to get out of their world to pull jokes on us." He lapsed back into boring teacher talk about the invasion of England by the Saxons,and how it related to the pagan people.she settled back into her seat,disappointed. She had thought he might actually be interesting, but it was nothing she hadn't know before. Her mother actually had a portrait of the sabbat wheel on the scrap of wall in her office that wasn't covered in bookshelves.many happy hours had sid spent in her mothers oversized leather recliner with a huge dusty book in her lap, reading about her ancestors adventures in the mountains of Transylvania. It was sort of frustrating.the dude was lecturing on pagan history(and he had been for the past month), but he barely knew any of it.sid knew that ,with her gypsy blood,she could teach this class AND teach it way better than mr snooze any day of the week. Sid looked at the clock. 1 hour and 45 minutes to go. with a mental groan of extreme agony, she settled down to wait.

When mr. Acropolis finally put down his pointer and rolled up the world map on the wall,sid almost sprinted for the door.she grabbed her backpack from the back of the back of her blue plastic chair and slung it over her shoulder. So eager to escape the dusty, monotonous confines of the classroom,she barely even slowed down to slap her homework onto the teachers desk.she knew he wouldn't find fault with it. He never did. As she fairly sprinted out the door , she thought she saw mr acropolis's eyes glowing red. Carried away on the flood of teenagers rushing from the classroom ,she didn't have a chance to get a second look.

The tile floors of the highschool clacked under the hard heels of her leather boots. Hazel walked in step behind her in companionable silence. She and hazel were as different as toothpaste and orange juice,sometimes to the point where sid was amazed they were bffs instead of mortal enemies. Sid wore black ,purple and silver,hazel wore pastels.sid was mysterious and unpopular,hazel was a girly-girl.sid was smart,hazel wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box. Sid was tall, hazel was short. Nevertheless, from the minute they met they had immeadiatly hit it off.it was a mutually beneficial relationship.hazel watched sids back,sid made sure hazel passed her tests .they helped each other, supported each other. That's what bffs did.

Hazel,while not the sharpest crayon in the box, was very well connected. When people saw her passing by in the hall, they called her the "illumination gazette,whats the word on the street?"she knew everything about what happened to everybody in lantern falls.right now,as they walked to the school library,sid was being regaled with stories about odd things that had been happening lately around lantern falls."dogs and cats are missing from locked homes.mrs varmes(interfereing old busybody) is complaining to the mayor about it.she wants to alert the neighborhood watch,you know her. She's not happy unless shes been complaining about something,and you know how she loved her yorkie-poo" I barely have time to nod before she launches back into her spiel"r.o.u.s. have been sighted in market square.theres this one tree, just on the edge of town,a huge oak with gold leaves,well its covered in bats. Completely coated. Plus Marianne,you know that old tramp?she was found dead in the woods yesterday.totally drained of blood.""sounds like vampires to me" I grunt. I am very well aquainted with the subject of vampires. If you had been paying attention earlier ,you would have known that my family is descended from translyvanian gypsies.TRANSYLVANIA. what was your comment again?hazel however,scoffs"don't be ridicoulous sid. There are no such things as vampires" I flip my long raven-black hair over my shoulder and reply"best not to discount these things,hazel. Ever read Shakespeare?"you know I haven't"hazel replied crossly"well he has a very famous quote:there are more things in heaven and earth then are dreamed of in your philosophy.my parents even put it on the refrigerator""sid ,you parents put EVERYTHING on the refrigerator" that's true,really. My refrigerator is so plaster with articles, sticky-notes & quotes that in some places you can sink your finger up to the knuckle and not touch metal.the only place exempt from this treatment is the handle,because its nessecary to OPEN the refrigerator."anyway"I said,changing the subject.we where almost to the library by now,and I wanted to get this issue cleared up"what are we going to do about Jackie? You've probably seen all her jack-o-lantern bash par-t posters?"hazel makes a gagging noise,pretending to stick a finger down her throat"how could I not?she wallpapered the entire language wing with them!"in perfect unison ,we cried "LAME". In order to understand this you have to know a little bit of personel information,but all it really boils down to is :we HATE Jackie.me and hazel have been bffs since kindergarten,and hazel and her Barbie posse have been tormenting us almost that long. She and her crew have a rap sheet a mile long.many times, she only escaped going to juvi because her daddy is a rich muckity- muck.for that reason also, the teachers cant bust her. She can do whatever she wants and I know for a fact all the teachers hate her,but the teachers cant do a thing about it because her father put in a big chunk of the money that made the school possible.he funds most of the major projects the school does, and that pretty much makes Jackie untouchable. Believe me, the girl plays it up. Over the past years ,she and her barbies(so-called because they are tall,blond and brainless)have,most memoriably:

1:snuck mice into the teacher's lounge

2:smearing peanut butter inside all the unpopulars lockers

unpopulars:me,hazel,caleb,john reise,jonny appleseed, Daniel parker, rayvn.

3:mixing up the labels on the beakers in the science lab.

4:assault with a deadly weapon(her purse,I have the bruises)

5:stealing from kids lockers

6:insults/lies of the humiliating kind at the top of her voice.

Although,Over the years ,an arrangement has worked itself out.it started in fifth grade,when hazel found a supply of designer makeup mistakenly sent to her house(she lives about a block away from Jackie,unfourtunatly.)her parents are really rich scientists,and im pretty sure they had hazel by mistake.their the kind of parents who leave hazel alone for months with a check for 1000 bucks.anyway, At the time to which I am referring, they were away on an expedition to Patagonia and hazel was left alone. Anyway,she called me and I snuck out.once I examined the package, I realized it was meant to go to Jackie. Its common knowledge among the unpopulars that Jackie never goes out of her house without at least 3 layers of make-up,and after I realized that , I knew exactly what to do.we rushed down the velvet-covered stairs and while I stood guard for the house keeper(shes a 22 -year -old Puerto-rican woman named marissa. I was standing guard on the logic that I would be better at keeping her out if she came) hazel melted all her makeup at high heat on their electric stove. It was hilarious!!Jackie didn't come to school for , like, 3 weeks ,and they were the best three weeks of my life without the spitballs, stiletto attacks and other various tortures. Well ,from then on ,jackies fate was sealed. Every year,the stupid bee-yotch throws this megasuper populars only Halloween bash at her mcmansion,and every year me and hazel find some way to totally wreck it. Shes installed security guards ,guard dogs, the most advanced burgaler alarm on the market and we STILL got in. for some reason, I never get noticed when I don't want to be,come dogs,high water or guys with tazers. Once we got into the grounds , we proceed to wreck everything in sight. A whirlwind of destruction ,that's hazel and me.

Shaking myself out of pleasant memories, I notice hazel has a wicked grin plastered across her face,similar to those found on carved pumpkin heads. The light of a truly brilliant idea burns in her eyes.which was,suprising(it WAS hazel) but I was willing to here her out. I gestured for her to spill it."doesn't jackie have that really new expensive dress comeing from paris?"she asked, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. "The stupid orange one with the black silk bats?how could I not,shes been bragging about it for weeks!she said she was gonna wear it to her stupid Halloween party. . . " I immeadiatly saw what hazel was getting at . "kinda mean , isn't it?""hazel turned to me ,her face plastered with a dead serious expression"remember when rayvn was hospitalized for 2 weeks when Jackie pushed her down the main staircase?" the day was firmly etched in my memory with blood and tears. Both me and hazel liked rayvn ,a quiet poetic goth girl who always wore purple beads in her hair.Jackie hadn't even had a good reason,and those stairs were 25 feet tall!I gritted my teeth and gave hazel a brisk nod."its on.find out when the dress gets here." Turning on my heel, I passed through the doors and stepped on the plush purple carpet of the library.hazel followed closely behind me.

Someone was watching them,his gaze unseen and speculative. A boy who looks about 18. he has a handsome face ,with glossy dark hair and almond –shaped emerald eyes. His long,muscular form is folded in a low room with cold stone walls. The only furniture is a beautiful table,carved from an unearthly wood.on the table sits the boy,a red wax candle and a crystal ball showing sid in her school library.her sinous ,curvy form is clearly visible.she turns, as if looking for someone.she clearly felt something.the boy quickly mutters something and waves his hand . the crystal ball goes dark."we must bring her here"he says his voice clear and authouritive."soon" someone bows ,a rustleing in the shadows."yes ,my prince"

That night, I had a very weird dream. As I lay curled in my purple quilt, the mist from the incense burning all around me seemed to seep its ways everywere, into every crack and crevice. I was floating ,buoyed on swirling gray mist. Everything ,sound, sight, seemed muted, distorted. Something moved through the mist, parting it like moses parting the red sea. It swirled up on each side of the figure,accentuating her curvy form. A low,blue-black velvet hood through her face into shadow even as she stalked toward me.her gait was easy and confident, more like a panthers easy grace than a humans awkward walk.

In her hand she carried a long scythe,glowing with a dim blue light. In her easy ,rolling walk,she walked up to me ,until she was right in front of me.the point of her nose practically touched mine, shadow still obscured her features. The intensity that seemed to radiated off her in waves was frightening. This girl was dangerous. This girl was powerful. This girl was . . . . . me? In one swift movement, she reached up and yanked down the cloak of her hood.her ,. . . my long, wavy black hair tumbled down to her shoulders,freed from its confines. My pale heart shaped face, my almond shaped,hazel-green eyes, my pale red lips! It was like looking in a mirror!what the heck is happening here? the scariest thing about the girl was that she never said a word. her feet barely even seemed to touch what passed for the ground in this strange dreamworld.the mist swirled into strange shapes, and she beckoned to them, like a orchestra conductor. a rabbit, with ragged ears and sad eyes. a skull wearing a long ,tail-coated suit. a fat man in a crooked red hat.one by one, their whispy forms swirled out of the dream-mist. they seemed to whispering, calling. i could barely make out one word from twenty. "soon" the girl with the glowing scythe spoke, all the power in her strong form conveyed into one word" soon"

"are you ready?"

"yah.you?"

"ready"

"allright , lets go . remember,stay close to me.she has dogs this time."

that last one was me to hazel, squatting in the bushes outside jackies mansion.the leaves scratched my face, which was pretty much the only bit of skin i was showing. both me and hazel were dressed in black;although she was wearing leggings and i was wearing my favorite black jeans. the secuirity at hazels mansion was tighter than ever.the stone walls were topped with razor wire. the guard were eqipped with tazers, and there were spotlights programed to randomly come on and flash on different spots. there were proximity alarms and stuff. . . .things i didnt even RECOGNIZE!


	2. everybody hates jackie

-I'd like to apologize to everyone /anyone who tried to submit an anonymous review . the parentals(meaning my mom ) don't let me accept them, and she said if I disobeyed her she would take down my account. just so you know, and can make an informed decision.-

every year the secuirity at the stuck-up airheads mansion got tighter and tighter . It didn't really matter , Jackie ever did or said would hold us back, me and hazel had made that vow long ago.i grunted, wedging my slim , gloved fingers in the crumbling stone. This old stone wall was riddled with cracks and crevices, despite all of Jackies gardeners efforts on the contrary .call it karma, whatever you like .whatever the name, those little cracks made perfect footholds. Slowly, I hauled myself up by the strength of my lean, wirey arms. Soon, amid a haze of sweat , I reached the top of the wall, right beside the strand of curly razor wire.i am an unatturally lucky 's just a fact I have learned to deal with. I sighed and reached down grabbing hazel by the wrist, hauling her up onto the top of the by some unnamed instinct, we flattened just as a searchlight swept over were our heads had been a second before.i remembered rayvn and clenched my teeth. Jackie had this comeing. Silent as foxes , me and hazel slipped through the ink of the night and landed on the other side of the wall. Well , I landed like a fox(by which I mean silently). Hazel landed flat on her stomach in the azalea bushes, making a huge CRRAACCK noise. Adrenaline flooded through my veins, and I flattened myself against the wall, barely daring to noone heard that , we would be extremely lucky.a searchlight moved toward us. At least hazel had enough sense not to a few heart-stopping minutes , the light finally moved away . I helped hazel out of the azaleas."stay close to me" I whispered"I don't want to get caught." I grabbed her hand, tugging her in a weave pattern across the night shrouded grass. Again it was my luck. Lights flashed on at random points, but we managed to avoid them everytime.

The tall shadowed trees loomed over us as me and hazel raced up the gravel drive to the servants entrance.(yes, Jackie has a servants entrance!) the oaks rustled over our heads , there shadows casting a chill over the ground.. silver – frosted grass crunched under my boots. (hazel was wearing sneakers).we scrambled up the marble steps,panicked and breathing hard.i quickly disarmed the alarm system(see, heres the funny when I said that everyone hates Jackie?well, by that I mean EVERYONE.) Her own mother despises her, her frends don't even LIKE time I saw Jackie with her family: her silverhaired linebacker of a dad and her snobbish, business suit wearing mother, I thanked my lucky stars I and my family where nothing like her .

Anyway, the point of this tangent is that her servants hate her treats them worse than single called organisms, or things that live in dog's poo. She yells ,she screams, she hits them, she never says please or thank you. The dude in charge of washing her familys dished has to wear a gas mask while he works, because she purposely hids dirty plates in hard to reach places and lets them grow mold, just to make his life a little harder . im pretty sure its some kind of mutant mold , too. that mold doesn't smell nice at all .

Sorry, I got off topic , the first nail in jackies coffin came about three years ago.


	3. prince lionel

Hazel and me were hanging at her house, watching movies. The night had fallen, and I had made plans to sleep over. The windows were shrouded in velvet darkness. Then, the ringing of the doorbell shattered tranquility. Groaning, I hauled my pajama-clad frame from the couch and shuffled down the hall. "Who the heck would be coming over this late? I grumbled, rubbing sleep from my eyes. The clouded glass on Hazel's door prohibited me from seeing our visitor, so, sighing, I opened the door. I never could have expected what I found there. Jackie's personal maid, Arabelle, a kind, soft looking Asian girl, was slumped on the doorstep, freezing rain pounding down on her almond skin. I stared at her a moment, shocked. It is not every day that you find the personal maid of your archenemy slumped on your best friends doorstep, much less one that looks like raw despair has thoroughly pounded with a chicken tenderizer. Her shoulders were shaking; streams of salty tears pouring down her face. I stared at her, stunned, then shouted "HAZEL"

She came, yawning, and gradually the whole story came out: how Jackie had gone into another of her temper tantrums, yelling and throughing things around the room. How arabelle had been unlucky enough to be caught in the middle of it, and how her sensitive ears had endured a stream of increasingly harsh obscenities. We offered her one of the spare beds, because she was in no condition to go back to Jackie that night. We fed her and sent her to an employment agency. She now works as a personal secretary to a local dentist, which she says is much more relaxing and much less stressful. She still talks to us, and is so grateful for what we did (even though we didn't do much) that she someway or another always gets all the alarm codes for Jackie's mansion to us at least the day before Halloween. We don't question it too much. Silently, hazel and I made our way up the back entrance staircase toward Jackie's room. The scarlet carpet was worn and shaggy. Cold drafts blew up the staircase. Jackie and her family didn't believe in splurging on the help. As we got closer and closer, something in the back of my mind started to tingle. There was a presence here, faint but alive. I could barely feel it, like the static you sometimes see on the edges of your vision. I shook my head to clear it, annoyed. I couldn't focus on presences now; we had a job to do. Like ninjas, Hazel and I made our way up the stairs.

I nearly gagged with disgust when I saw Jackie's room. In all the 5 years hazel and I had been sneaking in here, I had never seen her room, and I most definitely could have done without the experience. It was about the size of the ground floor of the houses REAL people have to live in. She had a creamy marble hot tub sunk into one corner, with 3 different taps (one for hot water. one for cold, and one for bubble bath. I had a sneaking suspicion that they were made of pure gold) her carpet was thick enough to cover my sneakers and her bed (pink and red) was covered in so many pillows that I couldn't see the actual duvet. There were sliding glass doors in one wall, leading out onto an open-air balcony. Hazel and I looked at each other, staring at the room in something like fascinated horror; we both blanched at the same time and then quickly divided up. Downstairs, we could hear the first of Jackie's snobbish guests arriving. Working silently and efficiently, hazel and me divided the room, looking for her stupid Parisian dress. Eventually Hazel found it, carelessly thrown in a crumpled heap behind Jackie's opulent bed. It was just as gruesome as Jackie had described, orange silk with a purple embroidered hem and neckline and stylized black bats sown across the chest. We gazed down at it, wondering how something that ugly could possibly exist. Eventually, I broke the silence." we have two options at this point, Hazel" I said solemnly" we could either put something this ugly out of its mystery and scatter its scraps to the four winds so It can never be resown, or we could take it back to your house and set it up for auction on ebay. How do you vote?


	4. the summonscliched, but appropriate

"Hazel" I murmured softly, not directly looking at the thing. The edges seemed to shimmer and disappear when it looked at it with anything other than my peripheral vision. Hazel looked up from were she had been stuffing the remains of Jackie's dress inside the mattress. "Look out on the balcony, just out of the corner of your vision. Do you see what I see?" straightening up, hazel squinted."Soap – bubble – looking thing? Kind of blurry, vaguely human –shaped? Yeah, I see it" I straightened my spine, moving to the right to shield hazel."What do you want?" silently, slowly, it reached out an appendage. I hesitate to call it an arm, because it had a remarkable lack of fingers. Wisps or a mist- looking substance fell off of it, dissipating into the air. I could have dealt with that. I could have dealt with the fact that it was floating about a foot above the floor. I could have dealt with the fact that it had no facial features whatsoever. The thing that really freaked me out, though, what I absolutely could NOT deal with, was that it was pointing at me.

I had no choice. It summoned me, and slowly I fell, resisting into a swirling black vortex the thing seemed to have become. Just before I disappeared, as I tilted over the edge, I managed to grab Hazel's ankle. Yelping in surprise, tumbling forward from were she had been frozen in fear and shock, my best friend plummeted into the void after me.


	5. transport through hyperion

"Hazel" I murmured softly, not directly looking at the thing. The edges seemed to shimmer and disappear when it looked at it with anything other than my peripheral vision. Hazel looked up from were she had been stuffing the remains of Jackie's dress inside the mattress. "Look out on the balcony, just out of the corner of your vision. Do you see what I see?" straightening up, hazel squinted."Soap – bubble – looking thing? Kind of blurry, vaguely human –shaped? Yeah, I see it" I straightened my spine, moving to the right to shield hazel."What do you want?" silently, slowly, it reached out an appendage. I hesitate to call it an arm, because it had a remarkable lack of fingers. Wisps or a mist- looking substance fell off of it, dissipating into the air. I could have dealt with that. I could have dealt with the fact that it was floating about a foot above the floor. I could have dealt with the fact that it had no facial features whatsoever. The thing that really freaked me out, though, what I absolutely could NOT deal with, was that it was pointing at me.

I had no choice. It summoned me, and slowly I fell, resisting into a swirling black vortex the thing seemed to have become. Just before I disappeared, as I tilted over the edge, I managed to grab Hazel's ankle. Yelping in surprise, tumbling forward from were she had been frozen in fear and shock, my best friend plummeted into the void after me.


	6. realizations

Dizzily, Sid shook her head to clear it. Slowly, what felt like liquid cotton dissolved, leaving the inside of her skull clear. Shakily, she hauled herself to her feet and reached out a hand to help hazel up. Back to back, the two friends uneasily looked around at their surroundings.

They were standing on the dusty dirt floor of a dark, one room hut. A fetid pile of straw covered with scraps of linen shoved up against one wall seemed to serve as the occupant's boards covered with leaves and half withered vines formed the walls, and the roof was another slab of wood, sagging with wetness near the a few steps,hazel crossed the dirt floor and peered out a roughly door-shaped hole in the wall . a minute later, her face went white, completely drained of blood."sid?" she choked out "you better take a look at this"a minute later, she was by hazel's side . together , they stared disbelievingly out at there completely unfamiliar surroundings . behemoths, gargantuan giants clothed in violet and gray. Looming, towering trees grew on every side, an ancient forest whose reaches stretch as far as the eye could see. The sky visible between ragged foliage sillouhetes was pure velvet black, speckled with swathes of silver , clearing her throat with a dry gulp , was the first to speak."hazel" she rasped, never tearing her eyes from their breathtaking surroundings."where the hekate are we?"


End file.
